Brian Bryan: I really loved the first 12 lines. You played off Vulgar's verse perfectly, had a really strong rhyme scheme and made good points with strong content. Then you slid into the same issue I had with your midgets verse, with the awkward rhyming. It's not a deal-breaker by any means, but the starting and stopping makes the verse a bit more difficult to read. Perhaps breaking up lines could help. Here's what I mean, in one example of plenty:
Quote:
…Are these political words of wisdom being used to deceive
or a modern miracle worth conviction? The future looks bleak
no matter how you choose to perceive it.
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Without the context of the second line, the first seems to mean something completely different, as though you're questioning whether the political words of wisdom are being used to deceive rather than whether the ideas as a whole are political words of wisdom being used to deceive. It's a pretty importand difference. The same could then be said about the following sentence, where "The future looks bleak" can stand on its own.
Now, your use of proper punctuation helps a lot with that. And this is a minor, minor flaw. You're a very good writer. But I feel like your grasp of technical delivery perhaps overshadows the more natural feel of when to rhyme. I have the same problem at times. It can leave a reader slightly disoriented and forced to reread in order to pick up both the lyricism and the content, since they don't match as well as they do for others. Again, this is picking at flaws. But that was an issue for you in your last verse, and it becomes one after the first 12 lines of this one.
Anyway, to get on with the rest of the verse, there were some good thoughts here and you played well off Vulgar's train of thought. You were much more direct than he was, which was important because it gave substance to his abstractions. As a result, your verse didn't have nearly as many standout lines. You build on your words, though a few of your thoughts felt like rambling run-ons with so many clauses. And the last section, maybe the last six or so lines, felt tacked on. But as a whole, this verse did an excellent job of complementing Vulgar's while carving out its own niche.
Rawn M.D.: I read the first two lines and thought you'd be going with a story approach, which would have been an interesting and challenging way to build off Vulgar's verse. But instead you went with a more generic view of the science vs. religion argument. I guess what I felt was lacking here was any real impactful viewpoint. You seemed to just take the "fuck it all" stance or, more cynically, the "throw everything up against a wall and see what sticks" method.
Religious discussion composed the bulk of the verse, and I didn't think much of it worked. Again, you weren't really saying anything with it. Also, that had almost nothing to do with Vulgar's verse. I think if you had been more direct about the discussion of the opposition of further medical research involving stem cells and abortions and eugenics and all that stuff, you could have had a strong verse. It wouldn't have lined up ideally with Vulgar's, but it could have worked nonetheless.
As an aside, two things I wanted to clear up: Judeo-Christian leadership decided there would be seven days in the week, and the same group, thousands of years later, decided there would be seven sins and seven virtues. That's not ironic at all. It's all part of the church's obsession with specific numbers: 3, 7 and 40. Also, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is the famous one. Mozart's Symphony No. 9 is not remarkable or recognizable.
Then there's the twist. That felt forced. I see some of the mild foreshadowing with the collisions of religion and the general relation of your verse to America, but that last line was delivered in a way that made me think I was supposed to really feel something strong. It didn't land. There were a few strong lines in your verse, but I've seen you come much better this week alone.
Vote: Brian Bryan